Religion for Atheists

A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion

(Pantheon; 320 pages; 26.95)

I happened to read Alain de Botton's latest book, "Religion for Atheists," in the same week that the burning of Qurans by American forces in Afghanistan led to multiple deaths. It was also the week that Rick Santorum resolutely stood by his 2008 speech in which he said, "Satan has his sights on the United States of America." These events, among many others, suggest that religion is still a far more pressing and passionate business than you might imagine from reading de Botton's book, in which he appears to take a thoroughly benign, even pollyannaish, view of religion.

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The son of secular Jewish parents, and an avowed atheist, de Botton begins with the premise, "Let us bluntly state that of course no religions are true in any God-given sense." He doesn't pretend he's giving an overview of all religions at all times in history, but concentrates on Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism, the ones he knows best.

Nevertheless he sees enormous value in religion because, he says, it fosters a sense of community, teaches kindness, morality, virtue, helps us feel less alone, and above all allows us to face up to "disappointment and eventual annihilation." He writes of the "ongoing charm and utility of the idea of Original Sin." To which even the most sympathetic nonbeliever might feel compelled to say, "Yes, but ... "

The book attempts to "reconcile an antipathy towards the supernatural side of religion with an admiration for certain of its ideas and practices," which means that it must leave out many less admirable ideas and practices: dogma, repression, guilt, holy wars and so on. Perhaps de Botton would say, as with a gun, that it isn't religion itself that harms people, but rather the way it's used; in any case, it's not an argument he pursues.

Meanwhile, his criticisms of secular life are by and large convincing: that we're too often defined by what it says on our business card; that romantic love "sends us on a maniacal quest for a single person with whom we hope to achieve a life-long and complete communion, one person in particular who will spare us any need for people in general"; that secular education has taught us how to make a living but not how to live. As for art galleries (a place where many atheists look for a quasi-sacred experience), "while exposing us to objects of genuine importance, they nevertheless seem incapable of adequately linking these to the needs of our souls."

Ultimately, however, de Botton is no more anti-secular than he is anti-religion. He says his "underlying thesis is not that secularism is wrong, but that we have secularized badly," an easy enough argument to accept, and if that were the full extent of his ambitions he might have written a worthy, sane, if slightly dull book, a plea for a kind of spiritualized humanism. But De Botton is anything but dull. He has one of two propositions he'd like you to consider.

He suggests that universities should establish a "Department for Relationships, an Institute of Dying and a Centre for Self-Knowledge." He thinks we might build temples to kindness, serenity, reflection and forgiveness, even a Temple to Perspective. He imagines "psychotherapeutic" travel agents who would send us places "to connect up with those qualities we esteem but cannot generate in sufficient quantities at home."

He writes, "We should insist that a percentage of all prominently positioned television screens on public view be hooked up to live feeds from ... extraplanetary telescopes" to remind us of our insignificant place in the vastness of the universe. Most extravagantly of all, he imagines events, based on the medieval Christian Feast of Fools, at which we "should be allowed to talk gibberish, fasten woolen penises to our coats and set out into the night to party and copulate randomly and joyfully with strangers, and then return the next morning to our partners, who will themselves have been off doing something similar."

Is he seriously advocating any or all of this? Is it a utopian fantasy, speculative philosophy, whimsical provocation or perhaps a deceptively slippery satire? I think the answer is yes, all of the above. It is however, in the nature of satire that the reader has to make up his or her own mind about which parts are which, and therefore about what the writer actually "means."

Those who read this book blithely accepting either the mysteries of religion or the supposed rationality of secularism are going to find the rug constantly pulled from under them. In the end, this makes "Religion for Atheists" a wonderfully dangerous and subversive book. There are some, I'm sure, who'd think it should be burned for that very reason.